Only a British outdoor arts festival could feature the advice “bring sun cream and/or a coat.”
And only the Kensington & Chelsea Festival could bring such an eclectic line-up of performances and experiences to West London over the summer, ranging from outdoor circus acts to dance pieces performed inside a 7m high rotating hourglass.
Throughout July and August the borough will be filled with pop-up performances (mostly taking place outdoors, and mostly free to watch), highlights of which include…
- Gaia, the now-iconic artwork by Luke Jerram which sees a giant scale replica of the Earth suspended outside Kensington Town Hall;
- PUBLIC, a guerrilla circus performance by the award-winning Ockham’s Razor company, designed to reclaim public spaces from corporations;
- A public art trail to follow throughout the festival, featuring sculptures by the likes of Gavin Turk and Sokari Douglas Camp CBE;
- WILD, in which Motionhouse acrobats put on a show performed entirely atop a forest of giant poles;
- Tiger Is Coming, a dynamic mini-festival of contemporary South Korean arts featuring some of the country’s most prominent performers, from alternative K-Pop stars Leenalchi to dance group collective A (who shape their choreography in response to a giant block of ice dripping above the stage) and ‘pioneers of algorithmic art’ Tacit Group, who use mathematical coding to create a unique piece of music live on stage each night; and
- Joli Vyann’s Timeless, in which a quartet of performers explore the irreversibility of climate change by dancing on, around, and inside an enormous, turning hourglass.
Tickets are available now, and there’s more shows and experiences still to be announced as the festival goes on.
You won’t want to take a rain check on this one.
NOTE: The Kensington & Chelsea Festival runs until the end of August. You can find out more, and book tickets for both free and paid performances, HERE.
Since you’re in the area… you may like to peruse this guide to the best restaurants in Chelsea.
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Carpe Diem!